On March 20 (March 7 by the old style) Vladimir Ilyich writes his first "Letter from Afar" under the title "The First Stage of the First Revolution." This first letter, and at the same time the only one to reach Petrograd before Vladimir Ilyich's arrival, was published in nos. 44-45 of *Pravda* from March 24 and 22, 1917 o.s. The remaining letters (nos. 2, 3, 4, 5) did not appear in print. In the interest of fully reflecting Vladimir Ilyich's political views of those days, we are also publishing the 4th letter. Its manuscript has not been preserved. We reprint it from *Pravda*.

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# LENIN.
# LETTERS FROM AFAR.
# LETTER ONE.
# THE FIRST STAGE OF THE FIRST REVOLUTION.

[March 20 (7), 1917]

The first revolution, engendered by the world imperialist war, has broken out. This first revolution will certainly not be the last.

The first stage of this first revolution—namely, the Russian revolution of March 1, 1917—judging from the scant data at the disposal of the author of these lines in Switzerland, has ended. This first stage will certainly not be the last stage of our revolution.

How could such a "miracle" have occurred—that in a mere 8 days, the time span indicated by Mr. Milyukov in his boastful telegram to all Russian representatives abroad—the monarchy, which had held sway for centuries and which, despite everything, had held firm through three years of the greatest, all-national class battles of 1905-1907, collapsed?

Miracles do not occur in nature or in history, but every sharp turn of history, including every revolution, produces such an abundance of content, unfolds such unexpectedly distinctive combinations of forms of struggle and correlations of forces between the combatants, that much must appear miraculous to the ordinary mind.

For the tsarist monarchy to collapse in a few days, the confluence of a whole series of conditions of world-historical importance was necessary. Let us point out the main ones.

Without the three years of the greatest class battles and the revolutionary energy of the Russian proletariat in 1905-1907, such a rapid second revolution—rapid in the sense of the completion of its *initial stage* in a few days—would have been impossible. The first (1905) plowed the soil deeply, eradicated age-old prejudices, awakened to political life and political struggle millions of workers and tens of millions of peasants, showed each other—and showed the whole world—all classes (and all the main parties) of Russian society in their true nature, in the true correlation of their interests, their forces, their modes of action, their immediate and further goals. The first revolution and the counter-revolutionary epoch that followed it (1907-1914) laid bare the entire essence of the tsarist monarchy, brought it to the "last extremity," exposed all its rottenness, viciousness, all the cynicism and depravity of the tsarist gang with the monstrous Rasputin at its head, all the brutalities of the Romanov family—these pogroms-makers, who have soaked Russia in the blood of Jews, workers, revolutionaries—these "first among equals" *landowners*, who *own millions of tens of thousands of acres of land* and resort to every brutality, every crime, to the ruin and strangulation of any number of citizens in order to preserve this "sacred property" of theirs and their class.

Without the revolution of 1905-1907, without the counter-revolution of 1907-1914, such a precise "self-determination" of all classes of the Russian people and the peoples inhabiting Russia, a determination of the relationship of these classes to each other and to the tsarist monarchy, would have been impossible—a determination that revealed itself in the eight days of the February-March revolution of 1917. This eight-day revolution was, if one may express it metaphorically, "staged" precisely after a dozen major and secondary rehearsals; the "actors" knew each other, their roles, their places, their surroundings inside and out, through and through, down to every shade of political tendencies and modes of action.

But if the first, great revolution of 1905, condemned as a "great rebellion" by gentlemen Guchkov and Milyukov with their hangers-on, after 12 years led to the "brilliant," "glorious" revolution of 1917, which Guchkovs and Milyukovs declare "glorious" because it (so far) gave them power—then there was still necessary a great, mighty, all-powerful "director" who, on the one hand, was capable of accelerating the course of world history to an enormous degree, and on the other hand—was able to generate unprecedented-force world crises, economic, political, national, and international. Besides the extraordinary acceleration of world history, there were needed especially sharp turns of it, so that on one of these turns the cart of the blood- and mud-soaked Romanov monarchy could overturn at once.

This all-powerful "director," this mighty accelerator, was the world imperialist war.

It is now beyond dispute that it is worldwide, since the U.S. and China are already half drawn into it today, will be fully drawn into it tomorrow.

It is now beyond dispute that it is imperialist on *both* sides. Only capitalists and their hangers-on, social-patriots and social-chauvinists, can deny or obscure this fact. The war is waged by both German and Anglo-French bourgeoisie for the plunder of foreign countries, for the strangulation of small peoples, for financial domination over the world, for the division and redivision of colonies, for the salvation of a dying capitalist system by fooling and dividing the workers of different countries.

The imperialist war had, with objective inevitability, to accelerate extraordinarily and sharpen unprecedentedly the class struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, had to transform itself into a civil war between hostile classes.

This *transformation* was *begun* by the February-March revolution of 1917, the first stage of which showed us, first, a joint blow against tsarism struck by two forces: the entire bourgeois and landlord Russia with all its unconscious hangers-on and with all its conscious leaders in the person of Anglo-French ambassadors and capitalists, on the one hand, and the *Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies*—on the other.

These three political camps, three basic political forces: 1) the tsarist monarchy, the leader of the serf-holding *landowners*, the leader of the old bureaucracy and generaldom; 2) the bourgeois and landlord Octobrist-Cadet Russia, which the petty bourgeoisie tagged along with; 3) the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, seeking allies for itself among all the proletariat and among all the mass of the poorest population—these three *basic* political forces revealed themselves with perfect clarity even in 8 days of the "first stage," even to such an observer removed from events, forced to confine himself to scanty telegrams from foreign newspapers, as the author of these lines.

But before discussing this in more detail, I must return to that part of my letter devoted to the factor of the prime force—the world imperialist war.

War has bound the warring powers, the warring groups of capitalists, the "masters" of capitalist civilization, the slaveholders of capitalist slavery, with *iron chains* to each other. One *bloody mass*—that is what the socio-political life of the historical moment we are experiencing is.

Socialists who went over to the side of the bourgeoisie at the beginning of the war—all these Davids and Scheidemanns in Germany, Plekhanovs, Potresovs, Gvozdevs and Co. in Russia—have long cried out at the top of their voices against the "illusions" of revolutionaries, against the "illusions" of the Basel Manifesto, against the "fantasies" of the transformation of the imperialist war into civil war. They extolled in every key the strength, viability, and adaptability supposedly demonstrated by capitalism—they, who were helping capitalists to "adapt," tame, fool, and divide the working classes of different countries!

But "he who laughs last will laugh best." The bourgeoisie did not succeed for long in postponing the revolutionary crisis engendered by war. It grows with unstoppable force in all countries, beginning with Germany, which, in the words of an observer who visited it recently, is experiencing a "genially organized famine," and ending with England and France, where famine is also approaching and where organization is far less "genial."

Naturally, in tsarist Russia, where disorganization was most monstrous and where the proletariat is most revolutionary (not owing to any special qualities of its own, but owing to the living traditions of the "fifth" year)—the revolutionary crisis broke out *earliest of all*. This crisis was accelerated by a series of the most severe defeats inflicted upon Russia and its allies. Defeats shook the entire old governmental apparatus and the entire old order, embittered against it all classes of the population, exasperated the army, decimated its old commanding staff, which was of an ossified-aristocratic and especially rotten bureaucratic character, and replaced it with a young, fresh staff, predominantly bourgeois, democratic, petty-bourgeois.

But while defeats in war played the role of a *negative* factor *accelerating the explosion*, the *tie* between Anglo-French financial capital, Anglo-French imperialism, and the Octobrist-Cadet capital of Russia was the factor accelerating this crisis.

The Anglo-French press, for understandable reasons, hushes up this extremely important aspect of the matter, while the German press gleefully emphasizes it. We Marxists must look the facts soberly in the face, neither disturbed by the lies of official, saccharine-diplomatic lies of diplomats and ministers of the first warring group of imperialists, nor winking at and sniggering with the financial and military competitors of the other warring group. The entire course of events of the February-March revolution shows clearly that the English and French embassies with their agents and "connections," who long made the most desperate efforts to prevent "separate" agreements and separate peace between Nicholas II (let us hope for and strive for this—the latter) and Wilhelm II, directly strove for the *removal* of Nicholas Romanov.

Let us not deceive ourselves.

If the revolution triumphed so swiftly and so—to all appearances, at first glance—"radically," it was only because, by virtue of an extraordinarily original historical situation, *completely different* streams *flowed together, and remarkably "harmoniously" flowed together*, *completely heterogeneous* class interests, *completely opposite* political and social strivings. Namely: the conspiracy of Anglo-French imperialists, who pushed Milyukov and Guchkov and Co. to seize power *in the interests of continuing the imperialist war*, in the interests of waging it with ever greater fury and stubbornness, in the interests of *slaughtering new millions of workers and peasants of Russia* to obtain Constantinople from the Guchkovs, Syria from the French, Mesopotamia from the English capitalists, etc. This—on the one hand. And on the other hand, the profound proletarian and mass-popular (all the poorest population of cities and villages) movement of a revolutionary character for bread, for peace, for *genuine freedom*.

Revolutionary workers and soldiers demolished to its foundation the vile tsarist *monarchy*, neither exulting nor disturbing themselves with the fact that at certain, short, exceptionally original historical moments the struggle of Shcheglovitov, Guchkov, Milyukov and Co. comes to *their aid*—those who desired only the replacement of one monarch with another.

That is how it was, and that alone is the case. Thus and only thus can a politician who does not fear the truth look at it, soberly weighing the correlation of social forces in the revolution, evaluating each "current moment" not only from the standpoint of all its present, today's originality, but also from the standpoint of the deeper springs, the deeper correlation of interests of the proletariat and bourgeoisie both in Russia and in the whole world.

The Petersburg workers and soldiers, like the workers and soldiers of all Russia, fought selflessly against the tsarist monarchy, for freedom, for land for the peasants, for peace against the imperialist slaughter. The Anglo-French imperialist capital, in the interests of continuing and intensifying this slaughter, was forging court intrigues, arranging a conspiracy, inciting and encouraging Guchkovs and Milyukovs, preparing a *completely ready new government*, which *seized power* after the very first blows of proletarian struggle delivered against tsarism.

This government is no chance collection of individuals.

These are representatives of a new class that has risen to political power in Russia—the class of capitalist landlords and bourgeoisie, which has long *ruled* our country economically and which, both during the revolution of 1905-1907 and during the counter-revolution of 1907-1914, and finally—and especially rapidly—during the war of 1914-1917, has organized itself politically at an extraordinary pace, seizing into its own hands both local self-government and public education, congresses of various kinds, the Duma, military-industrial committees, etc. This new class was "almost entirely" already in power by 1917; therefore, it was enough for the first blows against tsarism for it to collapse, clearing the way for the bourgeoisie. The imperialist war, demanding enormous effort, so accelerated the development of backward Russia that we "at once" (in reality as if at once) *caught up with* Italy, England, almost France, and received a "coalition," "national" (i.e., adapted for waging imperialist slaughter and for hoodwinking the people) "parliamentary" government.

Alongside this government—in essence, merely a shop foreman of the billion-ruble "firms" England and France, from the standpoint of the given war—there has arisen a new, unofficial, undeveloped, as yet comparatively weak *workers' government*, expressing the interests of the proletariat and all the poorest section of the urban and rural population. This is the *Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies* in Petersburg.

Such is the *actual* political situation, which we must first of all strive to establish with the greatest possible objective accuracy, so as to base Marxist tactics on the only solid foundation on which it must be based—the foundation of facts.

The tsarist monarchy is defeated, but not yet finished off.

The Octobrist-Cadet, bourgeois government, desirous of waging the imperialist war "to the end," in reality the shop foreman of the financial "firm" "England and France," *compelled to promise the people the maximum of freedoms and crumbs* consistent with this government retaining its power over the people and the possibility of continuing the imperialist slaughter.

The Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, the embryo of a workers' government, the representative of the interests of all the *poorest masses* of the population—i.e., 9/10 of the population—striving for peace, bread, *freedom*.

The struggle of these three forces determines the position that has now arisen and is in transition from the first to the second stage of the revolution.

For genuine struggle against the tsarist monarchy, for the genuine assurance of freedom—not in words alone, not in the promises of empty liberal demagogy—not the workers should support the new government, but this government should "support" the workers! For the sole *guarantee* of freedom and the complete destruction of tsarism is the *arming of the proletariat*, the consolidation, expansion, and development of the role, significance, and force of the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.

All else is phrase-mongering and lies, the self-deception of liberal and radical politicians.

Help arm the workers, or at least do not hinder this work—and freedom in Russia will be invincible, monarchy unreconstructable, the republic assured.

Otherwise the people will be deceived. Promises are cheap. Promises are worth nothing. The people have been "fed" with promises and the workers fooled with them by all bourgeois politicians in all bourgeois revolutions.

Our revolution is bourgeois—*therefore* the workers should support the bourgeoisie, say the hopelessly useless politicians from the camp of the liquidators.

Our revolution is bourgeois, say we Marxists—*therefore* the workers should open the eyes of the people to the deception of bourgeois politicians, teach it not to believe words, to rely only on its own forces, on its own organization, on its own unity, on its own arms.

The government of Octobrists and Cadets, of Guchkovs and Milyukovs, *cannot*—even if they sincerely wished to—give either peace, nor bread, nor freedom.

Peace—because it is a government of war, a government of continuing imperialist slaughter, a government of conquest, which has not yet renounced in the slightest way the tsarist policy of conquest of Armenia, Galicia, Turkey, the seizure of Constantinople, the renewed conquest of Poland, Courland, the Lithuanian region, etc. This government is bound hand and foot by Anglo-French imperialist capital. Russian capital is merely a branch of the world "firm" handling *hundreds of billions* of rubles and bearing the name: "England and France."

Bread—because this government is bourgeois. At best it will give the people, as Germany has done, a "genially organized famine." But the people will not tolerate famine. The people will learn, and will probably learn soon, that bread exists and can be obtained, but only through measures *not shrinking before the sanctity of capital and landed property*.

Freedom—because this government is landlord-capitalist, *fearing the people*.

Regarding the tactical tasks of our immediate conduct toward this government, we shall speak in another article. There we shall show what is distinctive about the current moment—the *transition* from the first to the second stage of the revolution, why the slogan, the "task of the day" in *this* moment should be: workers, you *have displayed miracles of proletarian, popular heroism in civil war against tsarism, you must display miracles of proletarian and universal popular organization in order to prepare your victory in the *second stage* of the revolution*.

Confining ourselves now to an analysis of class struggle and the correlation of class forces at this stage of the revolution, we must still pose the question: what are the *allies* of the proletariat in this revolution?

It has two allies: first, a broad mass numbering many tens of millions, constituting the enormous majority of the population—a semi-proletarian and, partly, petty-peasant population in Russia. This mass *needs* peace, bread, freedom, land. This mass will inevitably find itself under a certain influence of the bourgeoisie, and especially the petty bourgeoisie, which it approaches most closely in its living conditions, wavering between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The harsh lessons of the war, which will be all the harsher the more energetically Guchkov, Lvov, Milyukov and Co. wage war, will inevitably push this mass toward the proletariat, compel it to follow it. This mass we must now, utilizing the freedom of the new order and the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, strive to *enlighten* and *organize* first and foremost. Soviets of peasant deputies, soviets of agricultural workers—here is one of the most urgent tasks. Our efforts will consist not only in having agricultural workers form their separate soviets, but also in having the destitute and poorest peasants organize themselves *separately* from the well-to-do peasants. Regarding the particular tasks and particular forms of organization urgently necessary now, in the next letter.

Second, an ally of the Russian proletariat is the proletariat of all warring and all countries generally. It is to a considerable degree crushed by the war at present, and all too often social-chauvinists who have gone over to the side of the bourgeoisie—like Plekhanov, Gvozdev, Potresov in Russia and others in Europe—speak in its name. But the liberation of the proletariat from their influence has progressed with each month of the imperialist war, and the Russian revolution will *inevitably* accelerate this process to an enormous degree.

With these two allies the proletariat of *Russia* can go, and *will* go, and *utilizing the peculiarities of the present transitional moment*, to the conquest first of a democratic republic and the complete victory of the peasantry over the landowners, and then to *socialism*, which alone will give to the peoples tormented by war peace, bread, and freedom.